1. Field
The present application relates generally to wireless communications, and more specifically to methods and systems for determining whether to communicate an update message to a universal integrated circuit card (UICC).
2. Background
Wireless communication systems are widely deployed to provide various types of communication content such as voice, data, and so on. These systems may be multiple-access systems capable of supporting communication with multiple users by sharing the available system resources (e.g., bandwidth and transmit power). Examples of such multiple-access systems include code division multiple access (CDMA) systems, time division multiple access (TDMA) systems, frequency division multiple access (FDMA) systems, 3GPP Long Term Evolution (LTE) systems, time division synchronous code division multiple access (TD-SCDMA) systems and orthogonal frequency division multiple access (OFDMA) systems.
Generally, a wireless multiple-access communication system can support communication for multiple wireless terminals. Each terminal communicates with one or more base stations via transmissions on the forward and reverse links. The forward link (or downlink (DL)) refers to the communication link from the base stations to the terminals, and the reverse link (or uplink (UL)) refers to the communication link from the terminals to the base stations. This communication link may be established via a single-in-single-out, multiple-in-signal-out or a multiple-in-multiple-out (MIMO) system.
Further, a terminal may include a UICC and may be support contemporaneous communications with multiple radio access technologies (RAT). Some legacy terminals (e.g. user equipments (UEs)) can provide location status information on a single radio access technology at a time. If a terminal supports contemporaneous communications with multiple active RATs, the location status information from different RATs could interleave with each other and/or could interfere with a UICC toolkit application that assumes that a single RAT is active.
For example if a UE reports to the UICC that the UE is currently on LTE network with normal service and thereafter a CDMA network with normal service becomes available, a location status envelope indicating a CDMA network with normal service may be sent to the UICC. The location status envelope command may include CDMA specific location information such as a mobile country code (MCC), a system identifier (SID), a network identifier (NID), etc. The UICC may use the location information from CDMA instead of LTE, and the UE may indicate that the CDMA RAT is available, even though the UE is still actively associated with the LTE network. Further, if the UE subsequently moves out of the LTE coverage region, a location status envelope command of no service may be sent from the RAT module associated with the LTE network to the UICC even though normal service is available through the CDMA network. As such, the UICC may act as if the UE is without of service, even though the UE is within a coverage region of the CDMA network. Additionally, the UE may also send wrong result of Provide Local Information (PLI) proactive command to the UICC if the UICC request is based on an assumption of coverage by a first RAT while the UE is on a different RAT.
Therefore, a system and method that allows the UICC to maintain up to date information while avoiding confusion associated with available service from multiple RATs is desired.